Why you Need a Conveyor Guarding Assessment for your New Facility

12 July 2017
 Categories: , Blog

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Moving your packaging business from your garage to a warehouse means that you would need to install a conveyor belt to help manage the large quantities of orders. Notably, conveyor installations come with the need to place conveyor guards to protect staff from accidents and injuries. Since you want to have your business up and running within the shortest time possible, you might feel the urge to rush into installing conveyor protectors without carrying out a guarding assessment. In this regard, this article highlights reasons why you need to conduct an evaluation before installing the conveyor guards.

Comply with Industry Standards

There have been cases where businesses install guards on their conveyors only to realize that they do not meet industry standards. Guarding conveyors is not just a matter of fixing the guards and hoping that they would protect staff from possible accidents. The installation technique and the type of guards you use should be guided by current industry standards and regulations. Therefore, a guarding assessment allows you to analyze carefully what is acceptable and what is not. It gives you an opportunity to install guards appropriately in the first attempt. For instance, you risk legal action if you install guards at pinch points where staffs congregate on and neglect other areas.

Don't Guess Your Needs

With so many conveyors protector choices in the market, finding what you need might be a bit of a problem, which is particularly the case if it is your first time shopping for the guards. Buying extra guards for your facility translates to additional costs in the form of initial investment as well as maintenance. Examining your requirements ensures that you weed out guards that only add cosmetic value to the conveyor system. Most importantly, the checklist you come up with after an assessment would assist you in buying the exact number of guards required. In complex conveyor systems, you could engage the services of a professional to facilitate discernment of your specific requirements.

Standardizing Guards

A thorough conveyor guarding assessment helps you to normalize the guards to the exact specifications of your facility's conveyor belt. As mentioned earlier, guards come in different types and size thereby no single size fits all components. Once you standardized the guards, installation time is reduced because no additional parts would require fastening. Consequently, the cost of installation would be reduced accordingly. Further, standardized conveyor guards ease the maintenance routine because of the fewer components involved.